New Start On Fixing Roads

July 1, 1986|By Gray

It was four weeks ago today that voters overwhelmingly defeated the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's plan to fix the roads in Orange, Seminole and Osceola counties. Now it's time for the community to move on to a new solution. The area's horrendous road problems still exist.

True, a half-solution was kicking around last month in the final days of the Legislature. Lawmakers considered giving local governments the option of raising the gasoline tax by a nickel a gallon.

Yet even if that had been approved, it would have been no quick fix. Why? It was money alone without a plan -- regional or otherwise -- for spending those dollars. It was anyone's guess whether it would have fixed the area's real problem of inadequate state roads.

What's important in the coming months is that community leaders in all three counties agree on a transportation plan. Then next year they could go together to the Legislature to push for a new revenue source.

What's needed to fix the roads besides strong community support?

-- The dollars to get the job done. The three-county area is in a billion- dollar hole when it comes to fixing roads in the next five years. A billion dollars. Even the nickel increase in the gasoline tax that was proposed in the Legislature wouldn't have come close to addressing those needs. A gasoline tax increase of at least a dime a gallon -- which would produce several hundred million dollars when bonded -- is needed.

-- A transportation plan that includes Orange, Seminole and Osceola counties. It will do little good to come up with new transportation dollars if things are fixed only in Orange County. All three counties have major road needs, and many of those needs, such as State Road 436 and State Road 434, cross county lines. The roads need to work as a system, not as a hodgepodge of asphalt. Traffic doesn't stop at county lines. Neither should road improvements.

-- A transportation plan that includes an alternative to asphalt. Building more roads is not the only answer to solving this area's transportation problem. A fully developed mass transit system that includes rapid transit also plays a critical role in straightening out the mess. There has to be some way to take drivers off the road and pollution out of the air. The answer is not to build all the roads first and then think about mass transit. They should be planned together.